Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The artwork or rather the artplay (like wordplay) in the graphic novel ‘It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth’ is fantastic. Zoe Thorogood keeps changing the art-styles in this meta memoir, where she records six turbulent months of her life grappling with depression, self-loathing, and the constant wish to die. Luckily for her, she was also working on a comic-book series called ‘Rain’ during the period, so the work kept her sane.
The introductory page will immediately remind Studio Ghibli fans of the odd but iconic ‘No Face’ from Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’. Zoe takes inspiration from the character to represent the monsters in her head, so she is almost always surrounded by a gloomy black spirit in the work. Then there are a few pages and panels that are reminiscent of horror manga master Junji Ito’s artwork, especially some scenes where the author is going through extreme emotions. She has worms crawl up her skin and the mood switches to a horror comic. However, ‘It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth’ never gets dreamy like Ghibli’s works, not immensely terrifying like Ito’s oeuvre; instead it’s an awkward derivative mash which surprisingly complements the content of the book.
Despite being a personal peak into the intimate life of the author, it feels a little generic – a long-about way of saying “life sucks, I am alone, no one loves me, I don’t even get along well with my parents, I want to die”. Unfortunately, Zoe Thorogood herself bitterly realizes and illustrates in her novel that a lot of people feel the same way. She hates it when people say her work seems “relatable”, it’s a word she hears most when she is at book signings or comic-book conventions. In some minor solace to the creator, I didn’t find the book very relatable. Some bits, sure, who doesn’t feel like they want to die after a shitty day? Or a week? Or a month? Or even a year. And very few have someone singing ‘I’ll be there for you’ at the end of it. (You know, like the Rembrandts’ song from Friends)
At the beginning I thought this was a rather small graphic novel for a memoir in terms of length, however it became tedious in the second half and lost some of its earnest charm. The creator was probably not too sure about how to round things off, so we get a rather abrupt end. Since it’s a personal memoir of trying to deal with a difficult period in the creator’s life, the memoir is both personal yet alien. To me it felt like I was reading someone else’s diary and perhaps it would’ve been a lot more interesting if I actually knew them. I really enjoyed the artwork, the narration… not so much.
It’s a 3/5 from me.
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